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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384702">push me, pull you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmysheets/pseuds/sure%20sure'>sure sure (getoffmysheets)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>run long, roam far, return soon [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adorable Dustin Henderson, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington in Love, Cute Eleven | Jane Hopper, El loves Dustin, F/M, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:20:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,409</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384702</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmysheets/pseuds/sure%20sure</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t <em>look</em> at me.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Eleven | Jane Hopper &amp; Billy Hargrove, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington &amp; Dustin Henderson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>run long, roam far, return soon [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>277</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>push me, pull you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“You guys have been in here for over twenty minutes,” Steve complains, turning into the kitchen of the Wheeler’s house – not the same as the one they lived in while Nancy and Mike were in high school. Karen got her heart set on a fixer-upper after Mike left for college and it became a passion project for her. It’s old, charming, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>deeply </span>
  </em>
  <span>haunted. “What are you two doing?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Quickly, El turns away from Billy, nervously running her hand over the end of the braid draped over her shoulder. She’s dressed a little nicer than he normally sees her today, in a sweet flowing dress patterned in butterflies that leaves her shoulders bare. There’s always been an innocence to her, despite her childhood, or maybe because of it. A wide-eyed wonder that he secretly hopes she never loses.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Steve notices that Billy looks concerned as he informs Steve “El’s gotten herself ready for a big date.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Billy,” she pleads, mumbling at her hands. “I can’t.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just ask,” he coaxes softly. “Even if he says ‘no’, anything is better than wondering. You know that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ask who what?” Steve asks, confused. Then, feeling like he’s been hit with a frying pan: “Jesus fuck, please do not say Lucas, I will have a fucking heart attack-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lucas has spent six years hoping that Max would see what a monstrous snake her husband was and leave his ass and Max has, from what Billy’s told, regretted most of the eight years since they broke up for good. Steve can’t take watching life break El’s heart that way, not sweet and loyal Eleven.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Henderson,” Billy says, clipped and brusque. “She’s talking about Henderson.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why would you talk El into asking Dust on a date?” he says, even more confused now. “Eleven doesn’t even want to talk to Dustin. I mean, I don’t think you hate him, but he’s pretty sure that you do. He can be dramatic sometimes.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>El trembles as she slides down the wall into a crouch. “I can’t!” she tells Billy, her eyes filling with tears. “Billy, I can’t! I’ve already messed it up.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Crouching beside her, Billy says, “Why d’you never talk to him, honey?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She shrugs, staring at the floor as she wipes furiously at her cheeks. “I can’t-I can’t remember how to talk around him,” she says, swallowing against a fresh urge to weep. “I forget </span>
  <em>
    <span>words</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, baby, I know. Love can make you super dumb.” Billy says sympathetically and Steve feels sucker-punched when he realizes that he is talking about the way teenage Billy felt about teenage Steve.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Turning on his heel, Steve enters back into the group of people laughing around a game of mock D&amp;D in Max’s living room. “Hey,” he says, smiling at Dustin as he gestures wildly with a half-empty glass of Guinness. “Can I talk to you for a second?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Um, yeah.” Dust downs the rest of his glass and hands their shoddily made up script to Erica. “Have fun. Make me proud.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Wow, the bar has never been lower.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I love you too, you little shit.” Steve begins pulling him along toward the kitchen. He’s not sure he’ll ever get over Dustin growing up to be bigger and taller than him. Bemused, he asks, “Where are we going?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think that it’s time for El to apologize to you,” Steve says firmly. It was the one thing he was sure of – his realization may never have arrived if Billy hadn’t been laying in the hospital bed and apologized in that dead, traumatized monotone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dustin begins to resist a little. “No, Steve, c’mon. The six of us don’t really have to be attached at the hip.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You think she hates you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, I said she didn’t like me,” Dust replies patiently as they approach the kitchen. “That’s not the same thing.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Billy and El are where he left them, and if he didn’t believe it before, he believes it when he actually looks at her reaction to seeing Dustin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eleven’s back straightens up and her eyes widen, leaning away from their approach like someone is actively holding a gun to her head. If Billy’s reaction to his own love was rage, El’s reaction seems to be terror.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Dude, what did you guys do to her?” Dustin is just as clueless as Steve was, but it doesn’t take a genius like him to notice that she’s been crying recently. “Eleven…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Even the simple act of hearing her name makes El tremble. Dustin can barely seem to stand looking at her and it pains him. Steve says, “If you guys ever want to get past this, then she needs to apologize to you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why the hell do you think </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>needs to apologize to </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m the asshole</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you dipshits! Have the two of you seriously been telling her that was her fucking fault?!” Crouching, Dustin mutters, still without looking quite at her, “C’mon, you don’t need to do this. Go to The Party, I’ll talk to the idiots.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Dustin, what are you talking about?” Steve demands, “What’s your fault?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Startled, the younger man looks at him, blinks, then quickly says, “Nothing, stop harassing her about this. She doesn’t need to apologize, we don’t talk to each other, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have my back, okay?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Billy tries to say something, but Steve cuts him off. If he knows what Dustin sounds like when he’s tired, then he also knows what Dustin </span>
  <em>
    <span>looks </span>
  </em>
  <span>like when he’s done something he shouldn’t have. “Why do you look guilty? Dust, what did you do? Why did you call yourself an asshole?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Awkwardly fluffing his curly hair, like an exceptionally sad-looking poodle, Dustin grimaces and tells El, still without looking her directly in the eye, “Sorry, I thought you already told him. I should have known you wouldn’t rat me out. I’m sorry they’ve been bugging you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She stares at him, wide-eyed, as he turns to Steve and bluntly says “Eleven doesn’t like me because two weeks after graduation, after she broke up with Mike, I basically shoved my tongue down her throat.” Everyone in the room gapes at him in shock and he sighs heavily, “We were all at a bonfire, I was drunk, she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>drunk, She didn’t want to talk to me anymore, and I totally respect that. You guys need to stop this weird crusade to force her to like me, because it’s my fault. I earned it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dustin flails his arms in a ‘so, there’ kind of gesture, and adds, “El, I’m so sorry for this whole thing, I should’ve apologized immediately, but you look so freaked out anytime I go near you, and I didn’t wanna corner you like some kind of creep. You’ve always been Mike’s girl, and it was so fucking gross and sleazy for me to…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not a possession.” Eleven interrupts, her voice hard and cold. “I don’t belong to Mike Wheeler. Michael Wheeler doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>own </span>
  </em>
  <span>me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course he doesn’t,” Dustin assures her. With a nervous laugh, he adds, “I don’t think anyone could if they tried.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And El’s face fills with a helpless rage that reminds Billy painfully of himself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You idiot</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thinks, watching Dustin’s face, so full of friendly sympathy. So clueless for a kid so smart. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She wants to belong to someone. She wants to belong to </span>
  </em>
  <span>you</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Were his feelings that obvious?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, totally</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Robin’s voice answers in his head, explaining to Erica on the phone. </span>
  <em>
    <span>There poor Billy-boy was, heart on his sleeve, checkin’ Steve-o out like he was on the effing menu. And Steve got so flustered every time Billy walked in, he never even noticed.  </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You kissed me,” she repeats angrily.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Dustin repeats, miserably. “I took advantage of you, El, and it took me so fucking long to apologize, but I really am so sorry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t remember,” El seethes, fists clenched. “You kissed me, and I don’t remember.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You were really drunk,” Dustin says gently. “But I promise, I won’t ever do that again, okay?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Oh, that is the </span>
  <em>
    <span>opposite </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the thing Eleven wants to hear. She’s so angry – she feels like something she so desperately wants has been taken from her, and now Dustin is telling her she doesn’t even have the chance to get it back again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Bastard,” she hisses, eyes beginning to shine and glitter with unshed tears. On the stove, a kettle begins to whistle sharply, even though the burner it’s sitting on isn’t even lit.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dustin begins backing away, eyes wide, and El lunges, grabbing the front of his sweater with clawed fingers and kissing him, passionate with anger and six years of love that she’s just been choking herself on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She pulls away just as abruptly, and Dustin’s lower lip begins to bleed sluggishly. “You bit me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t sound mad, just quietly shocked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s all you can say to me?” she demands, as the tears begin to slide down her face. She has made herself into a fool, and for no good reason. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>told </span>
  </em>
  <span>Billy this was a mistake.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I…yes?” He’s bewildered by the combination of passion and violence, and even more bewildered by the tears. Maybe the kiss made them even now? But then why the hell is she crying? Fuck, he’s been trying not to upset her, Dustin can’t stand it when Eleven cries, but somehow, he’s managed to do it anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Swiping angrily at her eyes, El darts toward the back stairwell beside the sink. Dust, feeling like something important is slipping away from him, grabs her arm, though he knows that’s the last thing he should do with El when she’s upset. That’s how you end up suddenly knowing what the ceiling feels like on your back. “What do you want me to say?” he pleads, grabbing both of her elbows. “Just tell me what you want, and I promise I’ll do it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>LOVE ME BACK</span>
  </em>
  <span>!, she wants to scream.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” she says dully, limbs going slack like a puppet with its strings cut. The lie crushes her. “I don’t want anything.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you just…really not like me, then?” he asks in a small voice, and the question startles her into a half turn. “Because you didn’t remember my dumb drunk kiss, but you always act like I’m a Demogorgon that’s about to…eat…you…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her face is a brilliant crimson, arms crossed defensively over her chest. His lower lip still stings. “Oh.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>look </span>
  </em>
  <span>at me,” she says in a mumble, shoulders hunching. She covers her eyes, tears spilling out from beneath her fingers. Chin trembling, she repeats, half-pleading, “I don’t want anything.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dustin swallows hard, licks his lips. He’s been less nervous presenting his actual dissertation plan. “What if </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> want something? Would that be okay?” He watches her chewing on her lower lip before she nods. “Can you please look at me?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Slowly, arm trembling, she lowers her hand and stares at him, her gaze darting at him and then away, frightened and hesitant. She’s barely able to raise her voice. “...okay.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He never had the slightest conception of the power his touch could have over her, but when his hands cup her face, all of the cupboard doors suddenly swing themselves open. His thumbs wipe at the trails of tears on her cheeks and the dishes on the shelves tremble along with her. Dustin lets her relax enough to look him straight in the eye and says, deadly serious, “Do you have any idea how fucking difficult it is, finding a girl who can measure up to you?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her brows pinch together.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Because I’ve tried,” he confesses. “For twelve years, in three different states, I’ve tried to find a woman who can compete with the first girl I ever fell in love with, and it’s asking way too much of one person.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eleven listens, stunned, as he continues “Because that girl is the kindest person I know, and the strongest, and the bravest. She’s clever, and funny, and beautiful, and wise. She’s stubborn as a mule and she pushes anyone who’s ever loved her to be the best version of themselves. She can flip cars without breaking a sweat, and she makes a chocolate cake so delicious that after my first bite, I cried literal tears of joy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’s crying again, and the bags of flour and sugar on the counter have split their seams and begin to pour their contents all over the countertops and the floor. Like Eleven’s heart is bursting, and they burst with her in sympathy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Pressing his forehead to hers, Dustin whispers “That’s all I want. Find me your equal. I’ve tried, but every time I come home, I see you and I know it’s no use. No matter who they are, they can’t be better than an Eleven.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“…I can’t say anything that nice,” she admits, holding his hands to her skin. “I’m-I don’t have the words…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Karen’s tulips, half dead in their vase, are suddenly blooming in full life on the center island. Billy and Steve grin at each other.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Very quietly, Eleven says, “You carried me.” At his confused look, she continues “In the school. When we were young. You carried me. I remembered that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?” He doesn’t know why, because she seems to think this is very important.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It was the first,” she tells him. “The first time I really knew what ‘safe’ felt like. It was you. It’s always been you, too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dustin laughs. “We’re a pair of perfect fuck-ups, aren’t we?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Seriously, she asks “Are we a pair?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We could be. If you want.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She considers that for a moment. “Does it mean I can have a real kiss now?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His eyes flicker down to her lips. After fully breaking, his voice has always had an almost musical quality, but it seems especially nice to her. “They both felt pretty fucking real to me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The back of her neck tingles. As stubborn as he accused, El insists “More?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dustin glances nervously at Steve and Billy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Steve laughs and Billy rolls his eyes. “At least go upstairs, we don’t need to watch the two of you making out.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Billy sighs as El drags Dustin up the stairs. He’s intensely familiar with dating someone who looks innocent but turns into a fucking maniac in the sack when they’re in the right mood.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck, I hope the kid has a seatbelt and a fucking helmet.</span>
  </em>
</p>
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